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Old 02-02-2022, 08:49 AM
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peter_4059 (Peter)
Big Scopes are Cool

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Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SE Tasmania
Posts: 4,572
Quote:
Originally Posted by Startrek View Post
I’ve never balanced slightly west heavy, mostly even balance or just leave east heavy through the whole session, but some resistance against the Ra on the descending target on the western side at lower altitudes may help ?
Your thoughts ?
I think it is better for the worm to remain engaged on the same face of the ring gear and be exerting pressure to rotate the ring gear so the mount moves from east to west. You achieve this by balancing east heavy regardless of which side of the meridian you are pointing.

If you balance west heavy the worm needs to release pressure from the ring gear to permit the scope to move west. It will likely result in stick/slip movement and poorer tracking.

It is also better to be east heavy than neutral balance as you don't want the worm swapping between the two faces of the ring gear as the scope moves. There will always be some backlash in the Skywatcher EQ mount worm drives and this will be influencing tracking in RA if the worm is not working against one face of the ring gear.

Happy to be corrected if anyone sees it differently.
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